Ireland day 0708. Wednesday 06 September 2023- Dublin Art *

Ireland day 0708. Wednesday 06 September 2023- Dublin Art

Today’s summary	First thing, I drove Val and our guest to Sutton station to catch a train to Dublin, as the Malahide line was closed. Later, when the line reopened I went into Dublin to join them . We visited the Royal Hibernian, the National Library, and the archaeology museum. Drinks in Buswells afterwards
Today’s weather	Warm dry and sunny with a bit of cloud early afternoon. Light southerly breeze. Appx 25c (hottest day of the year)

Today’s overview location (The green mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The orange line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Royal Hibernian walk

Commentary

(Summary blog only. Last full blog was Day 0368).

Our guest is a distant relative of the 19th century Irish artist Sarah Purser, and she had arranged meetings in various museums and galleries in Dublin today, to try and research some of her history.

Unfortunately we hit our first road-block – or rather train-block – when we tried to catch the 0850 train into town. It turned out that there had been an incident on the line which meant that all trains were cancelled. So we hastily retreated to the flat, jumped into the car, and I drove Val and our guest to Sutton, where they caught the train on the Howth line. I returned to the flat and about an hour later, when the station seemed to be active again, caught a train and joined them in Dublin.

Val and our guest had successfully had their first meeting in Dublin castle – fortunately the delayed start wasn’t a problem. By the time I got in, they had finished at the castle, so I walked up from Connolly to meet them at the Royal Hibernian Academy, which was their second port of call. Val and I had a cup of coffee there while our guest had her meeting with Academy staff, then we all walked together to the National Gallery where we had a quick look round and a sandwich lunch. The next meeting was in the National Library, so while she was there, Val walked a short way down the street to the Archaeology museum.

We had been to the museum once before – though it was nearly two years ago – and had a good look round. Lots of interesting things to see – a good sweep of Irish history from the Palaeolithic to more recent times, taking in the bog bodies, Glendalough, the Vikings and the Battle of Clontarf along the way. Only the section on Egyptology seemed a bit out of place.

Exhausted by our intellectual pursuits and having made some significant progress on the pursuit of Purser, we all retired to nearby Buswell’s bar at about 6pm and we stayed there to enjoy a few glasses of Guinness before staggering off to Pearse station to catch the train home. We were lucky to make a swift DART connection and were back by 8pm, just in time to enjoy some delicious pizza and brownies that Val seemingly managed to rustle up out of nowhere.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Massive sheets of glass being delivered to a building site in Moss Street. Goodness knows how they unload them without breaking them	Where Clare Street and Lincoln Place meet Nassau Street

In the lobby of the National Library	Val checking out the relics in the Archaeology Museum

The rather creepy three-faced Corleck Hill stone head, from Co Cavan. We saw a replica of it in the Cavan County Museum a few weeks ago	I do like the Archaeology museum building, though the contents are a bit eclectic

Sunshine over the Government Buildings in Kildare Street, from the front steps of the National Library